Educational technologists have made progress in teaching parts of the curriculum that can be most easily reduced to routines, but we have made very little progress in expanding the range of what these programs can do.

In nearly every other sector of society, computers have reduced the necessity of performing tasks that can be reduced to a routine. Computers, therefore, are best at assessing human performance in the sorts of tasks in which humans have already been replaced by computers.

Perhaps the most concerning part of these developments is that our technology for high-stakes testing mirrors our technology for intelligent tutors. We use machine learning in a limited way for grading essays on tests, but for the most part those tests are dominated by assessment methods—multiple choice and quantitative input—in which computers can quickly compare student responses to an answer bank.

We’re pretty good at testing the kinds of things that intelligent tutors can teach, but we’re not nearly as good at testing the kinds of things that the labor market increasingly rewards.

Schooling that trains students to efficiently conduct routine tasks is training students for jobs that pay minimum wage—or jobs that simply no longer exist.

The spirit of play and discovery of knowledge is missing from much of formal education. Students not only have no experience with making or the tools needed to build things, they’re often at a tactile deficit. “Schools haven’t changed, but the students have,” Dan Dougherty, founder of Maker Faire, and editor of Make Magazine said. “They don’t come with these experiences.”

Dougherty often watches kids as they interact with hands-on experiments or materials at Maker Faire events. “It’s almost aggressively manipulating and touching things because they’re not used to it,” he said, which is unfortunate because that kind of work is in high demand in doing engineering or mechanical jobs.

“Even at the university level we’re choosing talent based on math scores, not on capabilities and demonstrated abilities,” Dougherty said. “I think kids are going to be the drivers of change in this.”

Technology buzzwords, although annoying, often seem innocuous enough. They’re just catchy and trite enough to bleed into common usage, but just misleading and obfuscatory enough as to discourage deep analysis. Two of the most widespread buzzwords and phrases to escape the tech world and infiltrate our general lexicon are the couplet “digital native” and “digital immigrant.”

For any buzzword, we should ask what assumptions and generalizations using it obscure and who benefits from its propagation. These two particular labels are prime subjects for inquiry. In brief, they overlook socio-economic differences, which exist within the younger generations, and do so in a way that creates lucrative business opportunities for education gurus.

When we take a look at the data and research, however, it becomes clear that the great divide between “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” is a puff of smoke—one that obscures the actual differences that other factors (like socio-economic status, gender, education, and technological immersion) play in digital proficiency.

After a successful first week of “Teaching Goes Massive: New Skills Required,” Paul-Olivier Dehaye, assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Zurich, deleted the course content as part of a social experiment to show students how their data can be manipulated online. But since Dehaye had not notified anyone of his intentions, the experiment raised confusion rather than awareness.

George Siemens, a researcher based at the University of Texas at Arlington, said Dehaye actually deserves some credit for raising awareness about MOOC providers’ ability (or lack thereof) to control quality and manage crises

“Coursera has been revealed as a house of cards in terms of governance and procedures for dealing with unusual situations,” Siemens wrote in a blog post. “MOOCs were developed so quickly and with such breathless optimism that the architects didn’t pay much attention to boring stuff like foundations and plumbing. What is the governance model at Coursera? Is there anything like a due process to resolve conflicts?”

Adult education is experiencing a much-needed surge of interest from the innovation and entrepreneurial communities, according to experts, observers, and providers. They hope that this interest will develop new human capital, improve outcomes, and attract additional resources.

Here’s a roundup of some of the most interesting trends and innovations in adult education from our interviews with experts and leaders in the field.

Games offer a rich and complex environment that demands experimentation, problem-solving and quick thinking.

"The goal is to change the student’s mindset to a mastery orientation­—to promote motivation, engagement, active learning­—and to cultivate 21st century skills like collaboration, problem solving, creativity and systems thinking," says Joey Lee, a research assistant professor of Technology and Education at Teacher's College, Columbia University. "Learning looks very different today, so we need to move away from the Industrial Revolution one-size-fits-all model that still plagues much of education."

The "Flare" Pan is a saucepan designed by University of Oxford engineer Thomas Povey that borrows design aspects from jet and rocket engines to burn hotter and more quickly than a conventional pan would over the same flame. It also looks pretty space age-y, which we can obviously get behind.